RAID and PTLE 5.3.2 - any experience

[IntelDoc]

All,
I went out an bought a new system after reading the posts on the Nforce and what not. Decided to go with the ASUS KT400 chipset versus the Nforce 2 stuff. Had a NFORCE 2 board and gave me nothing but probs. My new question for the day is this. I have a new system with:

ASUS 87V8X motherboard
1 gig DDR 400 ram
Geforce TI4200 running twin mode for dual monitors
40 gig 7200 ATA 133 (OS and apps ONLY)
80 gig 7200 ATA 133 (Backup)
VIA Cheapo Firewire card


Now this is the main question??? I have the ability to take advantage of the new SERIAL ATA 150 drives and run them in a RAID 0 configuration, or RAID 1. My thought is to get a second Serial ATA 150 drive. I have one now that is new, and forgot that I needed 2 for RAID capability. I am wondering if it would be worth it for me to get the socond drive, run RAID setup and go from there. Use the other 80 gig ATA 133 drive for storage, or even move it to another box and run backups nightly?

Anybody have luck/success with RAID and Pro Tools

I want it to be a PTLE strictly box and record with it.

Thanks,

[IntelDoc]

Cool
Thanks! That is all that I needed to know!
Later

[MoreMeintheMonitors]

Pro Tools absolutely, positively, without question, will NOT work with RAID. You'll probably have to disable RAID from the BIOS to get Pro Tools to launch.

[tele_player]

That statement 'absolutely, positively, without question, will NOT work with RAID' just makes me wonder.

RAID has different levels, and is implemented in various ways (e.g. software, hardware). Correctly done, and with an application which uses standard OS calls to access the files, RAID is transparent to applications.

So, it makes me wonder, what RAID implementation causes problems for PTLE: Hardware RAID, software RAID, Level 0, Level 5? It really _should_ work.

[Steve Moore]

I have often wondered this myself tele... I have three raid 5's here and some mirrors as well...

All the DUC's I've read say no dice, no way. I might understand a software raid, but a good hardware RAID should intercept standard OS calls right?

So is PT NOT using standard calls? Are they bypassing system resources and going straight to disk maybe? Might that be one reason for some of the other compatibility issues as well...?

Now I haven't written any low level apps in a while so I'm probably not up to speed on this, especially XP...

Still, how is it RAID 5 can be transparent to everything else (every other Windows app) and NOT PT?

BTW, all my RAID 5's are NT. I've never set one up in XP... Still XP is based on NT technology isn't it? Any limitations on using RAID 5's in XP for other apps? None that I have heard about.

So what's the deal?

ARrgh...! For now I'll just keep backing up to the RAIDS over the network. Still, for live applications for example, might it be nice to have that fault tolerant assurance?

Of course, any failure on a RAID while preserving data would probably be useless for continued operation in PT due to performance issues in a degraded array...

One last thought though, it seems like there would be definate advantages in track count in PT from a working RAID 5 due to the superior seek/read/write times, especially in RAIDS with 5 or more drives. I know I see an noticeable boost in OS performance on these systems. The web servers with datamining are at least twice as fast as their non-Raid backup counterparts.

[brianpatrick]

I just extricated myself from a 6 week stay in Purgatory in part due to having my HDs RAID configured. After I did a fresh install (Standard PC) everything was fine. The RAID I used was "0". I have no interrupts problems now, or the system sudeeenly crashing...not even a hiccup. I'm not sure why PT reacts so negatively to RAID, but it does.

[unsub1]

My onboard RAID (Asus P4PE) works great, and is incredibly fast and stable. Weird.

-steven

[Steve Moore]

unsub1:

What raid chip are you using? How is it configured? Mirror? Stripe set with parity?

[IntelDoc]

well,
for what its worth, my ASUS A7V8X motherboard has my SERIAL ATA 150 drive set as a RAID1+0 and it is working like a champ. I know that it is only 1 drive and it is faking the system, but it is being run on the RAID controller and seems to be very stable. I will keep you posted. Maybe next week I will buy another Serial drive and run it as RAID 0?

We will see...
Later...

[Steve Moore]

IntelDOC:

You are correct. I suspect that with only 1 drive the RAID may say it's there but not even be actually functioning. I mean how could it?

Many others have come before you. All that I know of for one reason or another have failed to get RAID to work with PT. DIGI says right up front that it's not supported. There must be a reason.

Perhaps in 6.x? I doubt it. I think it has to with fundamental disk access routines which are'nt likely to be changed at this point. Just guessing though.